Tool
Tool 10,000 Days [5/5] Tool haven’t spent the past five years since their genre-shattering opus, Lateralus, reliving the ’90s, jockeying for the Ozzfest crowd or rewriting “Prison Sex.” Rather, 10,000 Days finds the band more obsessed than ever with their search for that ever-more meditative, percussive, driving, chanting, whispering, aching, bubbling nirvana–and trampling just about...
Peeping Tom
Peeping Tom Peeping Tom [4/5] You know Mike Patton can do anything, right? He makes cartoon music with members of Slayer and the Melvins in Fantômas; scats with NYC turntable wizards X-Ecutioners; breezes through sultry slow jams with Jennifer Charles and Lovage; pushes the boundaries of the hearing threshold with John Zorn; blah, blah, blah....
Tilly And The Wall
Tilly And The Wall Bottoms Of Barrels [4/5] On their second album for the imprint run by Bright Eyes mainman Conor Oberst, this idiosyncratic Omaha, Nebraska, quintet casually craft efficient co-ed indie pop that, even though tap dancer Jamie Williams is Tilly And The Wall’s key percussionist (and selling point), sounds fully formed instrumentally. This...
Matmos
Matmos The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of A Beast [5/5] Matmos–a.k.a. San Francisco sound magicians Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt–are a unique musical entity whose output and techniques inspire emulation, but whose sonic inventiveness and conceptual rigor remain unmatched. Björk recognized this and asked Matmos not only to help produce her albums Vespertine...
The Black Heart Procession
The Black Heart Procession The Spell [4/5] Listening to the Black Heart Procession is always kind of a bummer–which, ironically, is the point. Over the course of nine years and five albums, BHP ringleaders Pall Jenkins (vocals/guitar) and Tobias Nathaniel (piano/organ/guitar) have imbued the band’s music with an indelible sadness that, when combined with their...
Head Automatica - Popaganda
Head Automatica Popaganda When Glassjaw mouthpiece Daryl Palumbo loaded up his iPod with Squeeze and Elvis Costello records and decided to get his swerve on with Head Automatica, more than a few Glassjaw fans were sure he’d gone gay. The rest of us knew it was exactly the opposite. Still, without Dan The Automator’s production...
Angels & Airwaves - We Don't Need to Whisper
Angels & Airwaves We Don’t Need To Whisper Okay, let’s get this out of the way: No album in the world could live up to the hype Tom DeLonge has created around Angels & Airwaves’ debut, We Don’t Need To Whisper. That being said, if you’re one of the lucky few not yet run over...
Halifax
Halifax The Inevitability Of A Strange World [3/5] You already know how Halifax spent their summer vacation: putting the finishing touches on their long-awaited debut album and appearing totally smashed on five less-than-flattering episodes of The Real World. But over a year has passed since the Thousand Oaks, California, quintet started recording The Inevitability Of...
Underoath - Define The Great Line
Underoath Define The Great Line There’s a church in Pittsburgh that, although named for a bridge on the city’s South Side, also has the best accidental summary of Christian heavy music’s m.o. in its moniker. And while Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community (that’s no joke) is just one of many young arts- and music-friendly churches...